1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to media broadcasting and, more particularly, to multimedia delivery systems for delivering media to subscribers over networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a rapidly growing communication network of interconnected computers around the world and is penetrating into every household in the United States and many other countries in the world. Together, these millions of connected computers form a vast repository of multimedia information that is readily accessible by users through any of the connected computers from anywhere at anytime. Multimedia information that is commonly available and deliverable via the Internet may include text information, images (or graphics), video and audio.
Continuous media information such as video and audio content are often the most demanded resources over the Internet. Delivery of such information over the Internet provides many advantages and benefits that cannot be matched by current television cable systems or broadcasting over the air. Given the vast accessibility of the Internet to the general population, many service providers or content providers are starting to broadcast continuous media programs over the Internet.
Users are, however, overwhelmed with the numerous media programs available through the Internet, cable or satellite systems. Recently, localized media service providers have consolidated some of the available programs and redelivered them with locally composed programs to their subscribers as value added services providers. One of the problems the media service providers face is how to efficiently control delivery and management of media services given the many variations that are presented. Media programs are typically received at media service providers from different sources and in different formats. For example, media programs can be received from the s transmissions, the over-the-air broadcasting, the wired cable systems, or private or public networks. The sources may include analog or digital formats. Examples of the digital formats are MPEG (e.g., MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MPEG7), QuickTime, and the like). Delivering media programs to subscribers when these programs are received in different forms from various different sources poses tremendous challenges to the media service providers. At the same time, the end playing equipment has to be sophisticated enough to accommodate all forms of incoming media signals. As a result, many existing service providers can only provide limited media programs and services to its subscribers.
Generally, the media service providers have to be equipped with many different media management tools to manage, schedule, and deliver the media programs from the various different sources, and thus presents significant overhead and complications to the service provider. In addition, different media service providers desire to provide different programming to their own subscribers. Further, a media service provider may desire to deliver different programming to different sets of subscribers. For example, a media service provider might desire to deliver digital media programs to employees in a corporation while, at the same time, desire to deliver cable television (TV) programs to homes. Generally, two different conventional media management systems are needed to manage and deliver such different media programs. Moreover, whenever there is a change to the services being provided or the format of the media being received or delivered, the media management systems would have to be reconfigured and possibly with new equipment added. The lack of flexibility in configuration and management of conventional media management systems has significantly hindered the ability of the server providers to provide programs in various forms over different mediums and flexible customer service packages.
Thus, there is a need for improved approaches to configuration, management and operation of a media delivery system.
Broadly speaking, the invention relates to improved approaches to configuration, management and operation of a media delivery system. The media delivery system centrally manages and stores media content and also controls the delivery of media content to subscribers.
According to one aspect of the invention, an administrator can control program scheduling, rates, service packages and system configuration for a media delivery system as well as provide access control to subscriber accounts by corresponding subscribers for desired selected services. Additionally, the administrator may also control billing, transaction monitoring, and customer relations. According to another aspect of the invention, the media delivery system provides subscribers with centrally managed storage for paused or recorded media. Still another aspect of the invention is that the media delivery system can restrict various administrators to different modules of the media delivery system. Yet another aspect of the invention is that services provided by the media delivery system can be restricted differently for different users of a common subscriber account.
The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a method, system, device, or computer readable medium. Several embodiments of the invention are discussed below.
As a media delivery center for delivery of media to users over a network, one embodiment of the invention includes at least: a media receiving unit, the media receiving unit being configured to receive media from one or more media sources; a media storage device, the media storage device being configured to store at least certain of the media being received by the media receiving unit; a media management unit operatively connected to the media receiving unit and the media storage device, the media management unit being configured to manage reception of the media from the one or more media sources, storage of at least the certain of the media in the media storage device, scheduling delivery of media from the media storage device to users; and media delivery hardware operatively connecting the media management unit to the network to facilitate the delivery of media from the media storage device to users.
As a method for delivery media content from a central location to multiple subscribers, one embodiment of the invention includes at least the operations of: configuring subscribers to receive delivery of media content; setting service packages and pricing options make available to users; storing the media content for various television programs or movies in a central media store; multicasting or unicasting certain of the stored media content to one or more of the subscribers.
As a method for delivery media programs from a central location to multiple subscribers, another embodiment of the invention includes at least the operations of: configuring subscribers to receive delivery of a selected set of the media programs over a network, wherein the media programs are received from different sources and different formats; setting service packages respectively for each of the users; reformatting the media programs to one or more predefined formats suitable for transporting over the network; storing the media programs in a central media store; and delivering a selected set of the media programs in the central media store over the network to one or more of the subscribers.
As a media delivery center for delivery of media to users over a network, one embodiment of the invention includes: a media receiving unit, the media receiving unit being configured to receive the media in a first format from one or more media sources; a media platform, coupled to the media receiving unit and receiving the media therefrom, transforming the media a second format suitable for transporting over the network; a media storage device coupled to the media platform, the media storage device being configured to store at least certain of the transformed media from the media platform; and a media management server, coupled to the media platform, configured to control the media platform how to transform the received media in the first format to the second format so that the transformed media can be optimally delivered over the network to the users.
The advantages of the invention are numerous. Different embodiments or implementations may yield one or more of the following advantages. One advantage of the invention is that a media system has integrated various services for the benefit of administrators and service providers. Another advantage of the invention is that the media system has a flexibile design that can be customized to fit service providers business needs. Still another advantage of the invention is that the media system is a centralized system that can support both live and on-demand services for many subscribers. Yet another advantage of the invention is that the media system has a flexible design that can enable subscribers to customized their program guides, services packages (including pause and record services), and the like.
Other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which illustrate, by way of example, the principles of the invention.